Picture description: "The Fable of Life" Yuan Kan's works exhibition site Courtesy of the organizers
After 3 years, the sculptor Yuan Kan gave another "new fable" in the Art Museum of Shanghai Oil Sculpture Institute. The poster at the entrance is the first to be seen, and the stainless steel "shark fin" pierces out from the back of the poster, like a sharp blade that dangles brightly, and this murderous zoo is full of mystery.
Yuan Kan bid farewell to the original group of cute white bears that had no quarrel with the world, and they temporarily disappeared behind the scenes in this stage play. An ambitious and powerful new group of new partners begins to appear: looming sharks covet sea lions, hippos creeping in the water and rhinos dancing alone are metaphors for uneasy circumstances... This "zoo" built in the art museum is like a big drama about to open, wrapped in a profound fable of life.
Yuan Kan will move the animals he and his children saw in the aquarium and zoo to the hall. The sea lions at the entrance on the first floor are unaware of the herds of sharks in the distance. The sharks are housed in a wide space on the first floor, arranged regularly on the ground that is planned as an ocean. On the second floor, a herd of hippos is placed on either side of the atrium in groups of three or five.
Walking up the stairs leading to the second floor, several penguins can be seen at the second floor entrance of the exhibition. Immediately after the eye is more penguins lined up for pilgrimage. These penguins made of resin and aluminum plate show different colors in Yuan Kan's hands. To distinguish it from the penguins in the zoo, the main colors of the penguin sculptures are mixed with golden gray and white. The gold displayed at the junction of white and gray, and the gold below the beak of the penguin, enhance the divinity of the animal. The penguins walked upright, then leaned down to disappear into the blood-stained clothes on the flagpole in the distance. With one finger hanging from the flagpole of the garment, the weeping Peter rabbit was placed behind the wall.
The arrangement of this exhibition has a strong stage effect. Passing through the hippo herd, the audience can see a rhino at the end of a narrow corridor, just as on a moonlit night, this lone rhinoceros is dancing alone, showing a final dance. In this dimly lit but focused exhibition, the most eye-catching and the only work on the wall is the ostrich in the light box. Yuan Kan drew inspiration from Milan Kundera's The Extinct and immediately created two sets of triptych pop-style ostrich portraits with exaggerated ostriches with their mouths wide open.
The works exhibited in this exhibition are animal-themed, created for the exhibition venue, and transcend the traditional form of sculpture in terms of space and exhibit layout and creation. Curator Jiang Mei said today's exhibition is a continuation of the "Fable of Tomorrow" four years ago, when the artist created a series of panda images. It is related to one's own situation at that time, anxiety and sense of crisis, and there are worries and worries about the future of people in society. "The Fable of Life" is a reflection on the value of life itself, with a broader vision.
This exhibition puts reflections on the weight of life behind these adorable animals. Yuan Kan's works show the admiration of animal divinity and reflection on life. The ocean color and the earth color of the hourglass allude to the different shapes, different colors, and different speeds of disappearance of living creatures on the earth, showing the reverence for life.
As one of the 4th Sculpture Academic Exhibition of Shanghai Oil Painting and Sculpture Institute, the "Fable of Life - Yuan Kan Works Exhibition" will last until December 23. (Xinmin Evening News reporter Le Mengrong intern Ye Zhi)